I Want You To Know One Thing
by vickrok
Summary: This is how it should have gone.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm pretty sure you'd call this AU, though I'm not entirely straight on the boundaries between just plain old fanfiction and alternate universe fanfiction. To be clear, this stuff didn't happen, and it is entirely inconsistent with what did happen. It starts before Season 1, and it's the way I would have handled the Walt/Vic part of the storyline without making the romance (much) more prominent than it already is.**

 **The magic of this pairing is sort of gone for me. This is my desperate attempt to bring it back, if only for a little while. Plus I'm overwhelmed with work and adulthood, and this is how I escape it. : )**

 **I don't know how long it will be or how often I will update.**

 **Oh, and you should read Pablo Naruda's poem "If You Forget Me." It reminds me of them.**

* * *

Chapter 1

He gets in the truck, out of the wind, but she stays to watch them secure the gurney.

Red light spins and bounces off the wet asphalt as the driver closes the rear doors on the tech in the back with the boy. Stepping to the shoulder next to the mangled motorcycle, she wraps her arms tighter around herself. For a time, it's only the sound of the wind and the hum and whoosh of tires from the northbound side of the highway. Then the diesel coughs and the emergency brake sighs and a single chirp of siren cuts the air.

She feels his eyes on her back.

When the ambulance moves, and the siren begins to whine, she walks over to the Bronco.

"You all right?" he asks once the door's shut and she's reaching for the seatbelt.

"I'm fine," she says.

"He'll be okay."

"I know."

She wants to tell him to back the fuck off, but she barely knows him, and she's not sure what her problem is anyway.

He pulls out onto the highway, right hand high on the wheel.

She could've done worse for a boss, she guesses. He's glum and self-involved, but fun to talk to sometimes. And for a backwoods, small-town sheriff, he is kind of a badass. She spends too much time with him, more than she's ever spent with anyone, but that's the nature of a job like this, way out here. At least it's easy between them. It feels familiar.

He's quiet for a while, driving south towards town, squinting into the oncoming headlights. Her shift ended two hours ago. She doesn't even try to turn on the radio.

"How long has he been gone?" he asks when they're almost there.

She's taken off guard. She didn't know he knew.

He glances at her.

"Five days," she says.

"Australia?"

"Mm-hmm."

He takes his right hand off the wheel and puts it on his thigh.

"If you need anything, Vic."

"I'm fine."

He puts the hand back.

"But thanks."

He looks over his arm at her briefly again.

A minute or two later, she says, "I don't miss him."

"You don't have to miss him to feel bad about it."

"So they say."

"Do they say that?" he says.

"I don't think so."

He tells her to go home, he'll take care of the report. She does know him well enough to know she'll just end up doing it herself tomorrow. Besides, she's in no hurry.

When she's finished, she goes to his door. He's staring down at his desk. She knocks and his head snaps up. He's red-eyed and far away.

"Sorry," she says. "I didn't mean to—"

He shakes his head, standing up.

"No," he says. He sort of smiles, like if he had more energy he'd feel embarrassed. "It's fine."

"Can I change my mind?"

"About what?"

"Needing anything."

/

He doesn't seem like a pizza kind of guy, but she orders one anyway, with meat. It's late; she has to offer him something. He shows up when he said he would in a different jacket and without the hat. The shirt might be different, too. He's got a six pack of beer with him.

He pulls one off at the front step and hands it up to her.

"I don't know if you drink beer," he says with half an awkward smile.

She takes it. "I do. Thanks."

Having him in her living room makes the ceiling seem lower. She feels filleted and raw and laid bare for him to judge at close range, but he's not focused on her.

"It won't fit there," he says, pointing to the far wall where she wants the couch. "Got a tape measure?"

She gets one from the garage, and it turns out he's right. She rethinks the design while he pops open another beer and studies the framed panorama of the Philadelphia skyline.

Her new plan is better.

When the pizza arrives they sit on the couch in its new location with the box on the coffee table. He stares up at the TV like he's not sure what it is.

"You want to play with it?" she says and immediately cringes.

He doesn't notice.

"May I?" he says.

A slice of pizza in one hand and the remote in the other, he flips through the channels.

"There used to be five," he says.

"Yeah, well, there's still never anything on."

It takes him a few minutes to confirm that for himself.

He shuts it off and puts the remote down between them. He drains his beer, but instead of getting up to go like she expects him to, he crushes the can in his hand and puts it on the coffee table then sits back on the couch.

She's thrown.

"I think I have another beer in the fridge," she says. "Bud Light. If you want one."

"You trying to get me drunk?" he says in that oddly playful tone he gets.

She raises her eyebrows at him. With almost any other man, she'd have a quick comeback, but she can never figure him out. She's not sure if he knows how it sounds.

"That'd be great," he says.

She gets the last two beers from the fridge, hands him one, then sits in the chair across from the couch.

"It gets better," he says.

"What does?"

"The loss."

His eyes dart to her face then down to the bottle. He twists the cap off.

"Is it getting better for you?" she asks.

He takes a deep breath and his brow furrows. In the short time she's known him, she's gotten used to this rhythm.

"No," he finally says, making eye contact and keeping it.

With a trace of a distant smile on his face, he tips his beer in her direction as if he's toasting her.

"I don't know," he says. "Maybe it is. You either move forward or you don't."

"You're still here," she says.

He takes a long drink then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"So are you."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It's after the summer solstice, a night she wouldn't have known was crisp and moonless and star-spattered if Ruby hadn't called.

The adrenaline does a good job of waking her up, getting her head in the right space. She figures it must be serious for them to call her in. They need her for back-up she assumes, though that's not what Ruby said exactly.

When she enters, the festive vibe is disorienting.

It's all bright colors and party lights, and clanging glasses behind the counter, and the smoky, hot air thick with thumping bass and twangy guitar. Boots stomp on the dance floor, and hoots and howls and shrieks pop up here and there out of the loud, slurry muttering.

There must be a hundred people, and not one looks her way. And aside from a young woman crying at a table in the corner, nobody appears to be in distress.

The mingled smell of spilled beer and kitchen grease and cologne and sweat is smothering. She keeps her hand on the butt of her sidearm.

Henry's sitting at a table, flirting with a group of women decked out for a Saturday night. He catches her eye, then notices her perched hand.

She bumps and nudges and squeezes her way over to him. He raises his eyebrows at her.

"Ruby called," she says. "Said there was some kind of trouble down at the Red Pony."

"Ah," he says.

He nods towards the end of the bar. She can tell he's trying not to grin.

There's Walt, sitting on the last stool before the office, elbows on the counter, coat off and hat on.

She bristles.

She bumps and nudges and squeezes until she reaches him.

She's about to poke him hard in his slumped shoulder when he turns on the barstool, and says, "Vic," about three times louder than necessary. He gestures vaguely around the room. "Everything's under control here."

"What was it?" she says. She's not as careful about the tone she uses with him anymore.

"Just a minor disturbance."

"Not minor enough to leave me alone on my night off apparently."

He clears his throat, straightens up. "Can't be too cautious."

His words are a little drawn out, a little thick and furry.

"Okay, then," she says with a fake smile. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"Since you're here," he says, "I could use a ride home."

In the truck she ignores him.

Since that night months ago when he came over to help her move the furniture, it's been something like a friendship between them, albeit a guarded and limited one almost entirely on his terms.

This is beyond what she's willing to do for that kind of friend.

"You were busy," he says when they're half-way there, once he realizes she's not carrying this one.

"Yup," she says.

She can see him in her peripheral vision, studying the side of her face, trying to figure out what she means by that.

"I thought you weren't dating," he says.

"Yeah, 'cause the only reason I might value my time is if it involves a man."

He looks away.

"When was the last time we talked about that anyway?" she says.

He shrugs. "A month ago."

"So maybe things have changed."

"Then I owe you an apology," he says.

"Damn straight you do. There's actually a deputy on duty."

She knows he couldn't have called Branch to be his tipsy taxi, especially not with the election looming, but that doesn't make it her problem.

"You had a date," he says.

"What difference does it make, Walt? It's my night off, and you got Ruby to lie so I'd give your drunk ass a ride home."

"Ruby didn't lie."

"Oh, well then that changes everything."

"Where'd you meet him?" he asks.

"You could have called me yourself, you know. Honesty and integrity and whatnot."

"It's not Garrett McCray, is it?"

"Seriously, Walt?" she says.

Men like Garrett McCray have never looked twice at her and never will. Her appeal isn't universal, and she accepts that. It's almost flattering that he would so wildly misjudge the boundaries of her league.

"McCray," he says like he's discovered who's been grazing cattle on his land. "I knew it."

"You knew it?"

He grins at her. "It's my job to recognize these things."

"Maybe I was just busy," she says.

"So you weren't with someone?"

"Why do you care?"

"I'm making conversation."

"Walt. Seriously."

"Come on, Vic. You're holding out on me."

She slams on the brakes, sliding to a stop on the gravel shoulder. They're both jerked forward into locked seatbelts.

He's stunned.

"You can walk from here, right?" she says.

He starts tugging at the shoulder belt but can't loosen it, so he unclasps the whole thing and lets it retract. For a second she thinks he's really getting out. Then he pulls the belt over again with lots of slack and fastens it.

There's a heaviness on her chest, a strange sadness bearing down, like if he pushed a little harder, gave her a little more of his arrogant, mocking shit, she might actually cry. It feels like failure, all of it: the divorce, the career prospects, especially being here now, just being available to be here now.

She keeps it together, though. She doesn't look at him, and she doesn't take the truck out of park.

Then the weirdest thing happens: He reaches over and picks up her hand from where it's resting on her thigh, and he squeezes it, warmly and briefly, sending a fat, hot bolt of shock through her.

Then he lets go, and he says, "I'm sorry, Vic."

She nods, dazed.

"I'm an asshole," he says.

"Yeah you are."

"Thanks for doing this for me."

She'd still rather he got out, but she shifts into drive and pulls onto the road again. Her head is pulsing and humming.

He's focused outward now, away from her and into the blackness of the road ahead and the fields on either side. He doesn't turn to her when he says, sounding dazed himself, "I cheated on my wife."

"What?" she says. She glances at him. "You?"

To some degree, she does understand his appeal with women like Lizzie and the other one from way back who shows up occasionally. He's tall and rugged, and he smells good. He's attractive, she guesses. But he's not the kind of guy you'd meet for a shag on your lunch hour.

"I called Lizzie Ambrose," he says. "That was me."

"That's what you mean?" she says. "You think that's cheating?"

His silence is different now, and she finds herself back in the place she always finds herself with him. She has this bizarre, innate urge to protect him, and that's never been her way, with anyone.

"I betrayed Martha."

She stops in front of the dark cabin and puts the truck in park again, but she doesn't cut the engine.

"You're alive, Walt. She'd want you to live your life. She'd want you to be happy."

He doesn't make a move to get out.

"You know you weren't really fooling anyone about that call, right?" she says.

A hint of a smile breaks through.

"Thanks, Vic," he says.

She watches him step up onto the porch then fumble for his keys. He's slow, but he eventually lets himself in and turns on the porch light.

He waves to her before closing the door.

"Goodnight, Walt," she whispers.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Never once has it occurred to her that he might be fucking Lizzie.

She knows they're seeing each other. He hasn't come right out and admitted it, but they all know, and they're all happy for him, including her. She's the one who encouraged him to get back in the saddle, isn't she? And what's it to her anyway?

It just never crosses her mind that they'd be sleeping together. The way she sees it, they're courting, early 20th Century style, minimal threat level. Not that she's threatened.

But she is understandably knocked for a loop the morning she follows Ferg to the cabin to return the Bronco, and Walt comes scampering out into the yard in his socks, with his shirt untucked and his hair disheveled, like he's hiding something. And that's the point right there: His behavior is suspect, yet she thinks close to nothing of it because it's him.

Then moments later Lizzie appears on the porch, casual and perky and pretty, which is the worst part. She waves and offers them coffee as though it's hers to offer.

That's when everything shifts.

Maybe she and Ferg look sideswiped and intrigued, and that would be an accurate assessment, because Walt growls at them under his breath, "Not a word."

Like she'd say anything.

It's no big deal. It's just she's never thought of him as being particularly sexual, that's all.

After that, though, she can't not think of him that way. It's those long legs, and the huge hands, and that sweet, musky smell he gets at the end of a hot day, and the way he tilts his head when he smiles at her, and God, the way his belt buckle lies against what isn't technically his stomach, and the hair on his forearms. Even the way he teases her has a sexual undertone she now realizes might have been there all along. But he doesn't tease her as much anymore.

So she has to do something, and ultimately, she does what any self-respecting, emotionally-avoidant woman would do: She detaches.

The guy's name is Wyatt, and he's a rodeo rider. She figures all that physicality must mean something. As it turns out, it doesn't. Within a couple of weeks she's bored with the most exciting man she's met in the year she's been out here in bumfuck nowhere. To rub it in, Lizzie drops by the station every third day, and she has to be fine with that because what reason could she possibly have for being bugged?

She won't be defeated, though, and she's ready, sort of, to get right back on her own warn saddle with Sean's old boss from Newett. But then she gets shot, and everything shifts again.

She's out in the forest with Omar and the ranger, and the next thing she knows, she's waking up in a hospital bed, and a male nurse named Olaf, no accent, is saying, "We're still trying to get hold of your husband, Mrs. Moretti."

Her hands and her lips and her tongue feel like balloons.

"Husband?"

"Sean?"

"I don't think he's my husband anymore," she says.

Then Walt comes in, and he's Sasquatch next to Olaf and against the white walls.

"They're trying to get hold of my husband," she says to him. She's grinning like a moron because that's how he makes her feel, and her defenses are down for the count. "Could you stop them please?"

"We'll get her home," Walt says to Olaf.

Olaf nods and walks out.

"I'm glad you're here," she says. She hears herself all inflated and dreamy as though she's somebody else, somebody weak. "I'm really sorry I got shot."

"You already said that, Vic," he says, but not like he's annoyed.

"I did? When?"

"Ten minutes ago."

"Did I say I just need a couple of Tylenol and a glass of water and I'm ready to get back out there?"

"You did."

"What did you say?"

"I said you're going home to rest for at least a day."

"It wasn't a real bullet, Walt."

He smiles. "Real enough."

Then it's like a forward cue on an old VHS machine and they're at her front door.

He's got his arm around her, holding her steady. He helps her to the couch where she plops down and watches him go into the kitchen as though he knows the place, as though he belongs here.

He brings her a glass of water.

"And a Tylenol?"

"Not yet."

He sits down on the other end of the couch. She pulls her legs up with a staggering amount of effort, and sits cross-legged, facing him. His eyes are bloodshot and shadowed.

"What time is it?" she says.

"Seven."

"We should have dinner."

"In the morning," he says.

"Then breakfast."

"Are you hungry?" he asks.

"No."

"You should get some sleep then."

"Can I tell you something?"

"Sure," he says.

"The idea of you having sex with Lizzie makes me feel a little unhinged."

His eyes widen, but other than that, he's completely still.

She's not sure how long it is before he says, "Vic."

"What? Is that inappropriate?"

"I think so," he says. "Yes."

He gets up, but he doesn't go anywhere. He just stands in front of where he'd been sitting, squeezing his hands into balls and releasing them.

"I never thought you were all that attractive," she says.

"Thanks."

She sees his discomfort, but with all the drugs in her system, she can't feel it, and only feeling it would make her stop.

"You were so grumpy."

"I still am," he says, kind of jokey, but eyes still fixed and wary.

"She's lucky," she says. It sounds pathetic, even to her.

"Thank you, Vic." He comes over to her and holds out his hand to help her up. "You should get some sleep."

She doesn't take his hand. Maybe she's giving him a chance to change his mind about this particular move at this particular moment, but she's not lucid enough to put that thought together in its entirety.

"They said I might die if I go to sleep," she says.

"I don't think they said that."

"But they told you not to leave me alone."

"It's a precaution."

So she lets him pull her up, and when he does, she does exactly what he might have expected her to do at this particular moment in this particular emotional state, mere seconds beyond the loaded conversation she started: She wraps her arms around his middle.

"Thank you for saving me," she says into his shirt.

"I didn't save you." His voice rumbles in her ear.

"But you would have."

She looks up at him. His chin is close. She touches the stubble, and he says, "Vic," but there's no voice, it's all air.

Then her fingers crawl up and they're on his lips. His stomach is rising and falling, deeper each time, against her chest.

"Vic," he says. "Come on."

She stands on her toes and kisses him lightly.

He pulls his head back, but it's a delayed reaction.

She says, "I'm sorry."

Her hands are still on his chest, and she doesn't sound all that sorry. Still, she's aware enough to know she doesn't want to sexually assault him.

All fuzzy and floaty, she begins to step back, but instead of stepping back himself out of her reach, he steps towards her. He slides his hand slowly around her waist, one or maybe two fingers slipping between her shirt and the waistband of her sweats and landing on the sensitive skin of her hip, and he pulls her to him.

There's a moment when he's just looking down at her, from eye to eye. As usual she thinks he's about to say something, but in the end he doesn't. He leans down, at the same slow pace, and he kisses her. The other hand comes up and brushes her hair back. He tilts his head, and he opens his mouth, which opens hers, and now it's on both of them.

It lasts a beat or maybe two, and then it's over, and she's sitting again, and he's looking off towards the kitchen with his hand covering his mouth.

Somehow, she manages to drag her ass up the stairs to her bedroom. He follows at a safe distance. While she gets under the covers, he stands in the doorway.

When he turns to go back downstairs, she says, "Do you think I'll remember this?"

"The doctor said you might not."

"That's probably good."


	4. Chapter 4

**Happy New Year!**

 **I'm away from home, but I brought my computer with me. I've been working on this short chapter on and off for the past week, and it hasn't changed much so I figured I just needed to put it out there and move on to the next one.**

 **Thank you, as always, for the reviews and the PMs and for reading in general.**

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Chapter 4

Up close it's not so different.

There are the calls and the occasional case, and her having his back and him having hers. And there's the looming election he doesn't seem to care enough about, and there's the fact that she's still not sure where she wants to be or how much of a choice she has. In terms of their professional relationship and their day-to-day semi-personal interactions, there's no weirdness to speak of.

Sometimes, though, she does catch him watching her from a distance, across the office or while they're out on a call. She doesn't have to see it; she senses it.

When she looks at him, he looks away, denies the existence of whatever it is. Of course, she knows what it is, but she can't let on that she knows. He avoids eye contact after she catches him, and closes off for a while. Then he starts doing it again.

She squirms when it's happening, and she misses it when it's gone, and when it's back, her insides ignite. She feels exposed and vulnerable but giddy because she wants him, and disturbed because she doesn't want to want him.

Besides, and probably foremost, she's embarrassed. Plus, she can't afford to get fired.

Even when it's obvious that she's noticed, she pretends she hasn't, but she's not fooling anyone, especially not herself. It's already too late—there's a pattern.

Then one day she snaps.

They're out at Carlos Grantham's ranch on the trail of Marshall Anders' wild teenage daughter when she catches him doing it, again. From across the dusty yard, she goes on the defensive: hands out to the side, palms up. _What-the-fuck,_ the gesture says. _Bring-it-on_.

The corner of his mouth twitches, but this time he doesn't retreat. He stands there, hands on hips, next to the round corral, under foreboding gray cloud-cover, observing.

Fortunately, her sensible side assumes control, tells her if she keeps it up, he'll know for sure. Since the sensible side is also compassionate, it doesn't point out that there's no way in hell after that little display the jig isn't already up.

She tries to recall what she would have done before.

Maybe he never did it before, she thinks, or maybe he did, but she never realized. But that's not true. He did do it, sometimes, and she was aware of it; she just never questioned the reason. Back then, it was communication. He was touching base. Depending on the situation, she'd roll her eyes, or make a face that indicated the degree to which she thought the witness or the suspect or the mayor was a total fucking idiot. In response, he'd give her the closed-mouth, lopsided smile, or shake his head, or at least once, wink at her, which now that she thinks about it did have a lower level but similar igniting effect.

On their way back to the station, he looks over his arm at her a few times.

"What?" she says.

"You know what a lie by omission is?"

He's a condescending prick. That hasn't changed, either.

"Of course I do."

They stop for gas at the Kum and Go. While he's inside paying, she types it into Google with her thumbs.

Once they're back on the road, she says, "In order for me to foster a misrepresentation, there would have to actually be a representation."

He glances at her, his eyes grinning. "You lost me."

"I'm not trying to pass off a story, Walt, true or not."

"Aren't you?"

"Am I?"

He shrugs. "You're not yourself," he says.

She says, "How would you know?"

"I think I'd know."

"Well, you're not yourself, either."

She's not sure what she means. He's about as himself as she's ever known him to be. In fact, she's only ever known him not to be himself that one fateful time for those ten seconds or so.

To presume to have had a personality-altering effect on him would involve far more confidence than she feels where he's concerned.

"No," he says. "I'd say I'm not."

"So sweep your own side of the street."

They're out in the middle of nowhere, which could be just about anywhere in Absaroka, when he pulls onto the shoulder. The gloom is combining now with dusk. He turns off the engine and removes his seatbelt and turns half-way towards her.

"Let's do this," he says.

Her heart shudders and threatens to stall. She's terrified, and aroused.

"Do what?"

He scratches his cheek and looks out into the darkening grayness. Her stomach gnaws away at itself.

"Talk about it."

"Talk about what?"

"I behaved unprofessionally," he says before he looks at her again.

Since he's clearly given up even pretending to believe her, she says, "I started it."

"But you had an excuse."

She did have an excuse.

"It's no big thing," she says, though it is. It's huge.

He turns away from her, only an inch or two but enough to let the cold in.

"You'd be justified in filing a complaint," he says.

"A complaint? You're joking, right?"

"It's a serious transgression."

"Let's just forget it," she says. "It was nothing."

He shakes his head. "I don't know what's the matter with me."

"Nothing's the matter with you. It was a mistake, and I was the instigator. I dragged you down with me."

"I know," he says.

"Seriously?" She probably sounds hurt, and she sort of doesn't care.

"That it was a mistake."

The clarification doesn't make it any better. She should feel grateful that he doesn't blame her, that it's not going to result in her termination, but the sense of rejection is taking up too much space.

"It was kind of gross," she says to even the score.

He smiles, cuts his eyes at her. She can tell he has something to say to that, but he doesn't.

"It won't happen again," he says.

Her heart hurts.

"No argument here," she says.


	5. Chapter 5

**Here's another one. : )**

* * *

Chapter 5

The day after the election, he shows up. It's her fourth night in her new apartment, and she's jolted awake by some noise or movement or flash of light. Heart pounding, she sits up in bed, eyes and ears straining against the quiet, unfamiliar dark. Her gun is in the bedside stand.

There's a soft knocking on the front door, maybe the sound that woke her. It radiates through her chest. She reaches over, holding her breath, to ease the drawer open. The knocking comes again. Then she hears his voice saying her name, and the fear changes.

"Be right there!" she calls, switching on the lamp.

A thought barges in. It's the same thought she had when she found Cady injured and unconscious, eyes open, on the shoulder of the road: She isn't made of sturdy enough stuff to handle what's coming or the way she'll be needed once it's here.

Out of decency or respect or something, she grabs the ratty old grey sweatshirt she tossed on the chair before bed. It's irrational. She's already decent in pajama pants and a T-shirt, and besides, when she opens that door and lets that grief in, it won't matter what she's wearing.

She flips on the porch light and releases the chain and unlocks the dead bolt, and she opens the door to find him on the stoop with his back to her. He's facing the walkway and the borderline of bushes, as though he's on his way out already.

"Where's your jacket?" she whispers, like waking up the neighbors should be of any concern right now.

He turns around, drawn and haggard and fragile with the same lost look in his eyes. He shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe at the hospital."

"We'll find it," she says.

She steps onto the porch and guides him inside by the arm. He's never been here before, but he goes to the couch like he knows the room, even in the semi-darkness. He sits in the same spot he sat in a year and a half ago, when she first arrived and they became entangled in each other's lives.

Her instinct is to buy herself some time by offering him a drink or something to eat. That's how she knows she needs to stay right here. She kneels on the floor in front of him, and she takes his hands in hers and holds them on his lap. They're surprisingly warm for the cold November night.

"I'm here," she says because what else is there to say?

He pulls his hands away and leaning forward, covers his face with them.

She was with him at the hospital until 9:00 when Branch came back. She probably should've stayed for whatever happened after she left, but someone has to be rested enough to work. Plus, nothing was changing—Cady seemed no worse and no better than she'd seemed thirty-six hours earlier. Now that she thinks about it, though, no better actually is worse.

She sits next to him and puts her hand on his broad back. He smells of fresh beer and an undercurrent of older alcohol, like he just downed one before knocking but it wasn't the first of the evening.

It could be a while, and she's okay with that. There's no hurry now. Plus, she's managing so far. As long as there's no talking involved, she can support him. After that she'll have to defer to someone more emotionally capable. Lizzie's a talker, and she's probably a feeler, too. That's who he should be with really.

He lifts his head and wipes first one eye and then the other with the heel of the same hand. He exhales, shuddering.

"It's over," he says, his voice raspy.

She can only do what she can do. Her talents have always been more external than internal. Maybe she can't think of the right words, but she can be present physically, she can comfort him that way. So she hugs him. It's an awkward angle, and there's a millisecond of tension in his body but then he relaxes into it. He feels even bigger than he looks, and it makes her question how much she really has to offer.

"Branch is with her now," he says over her shoulder.

It takes her a moment to process what he means. Branch and Cady were together. They might have even loved each other, but still. She pulls back from him, but she takes his hand again so he knows she's not going anywhere.

"We should go back," she says.

"They need time."

"She's your daughter, Walt."

A sad smile creeps into the corners of his mouth.

"She doesn't need me hovering right now."

"What?"

"I won't seem too accepting if I show up again an hour later."

"What?" she says again. The possibility that he might be having some sort of mental breakdown crosses her mind. "Don't worry about that. She forgives you, Walt."

"She told me that," he says.

She stares at him.

He's tired and traumatized. He could be confused, or in one of the less sane stages of grief. Or it could be her. Maybe she's the one cracking up.

He runs his thumb across her palm and leans his head back against the couch.

"Thanks, Vic," he says.

She extracts her hand carefully so as not to set off any alarms, and she sits up straight.

"So she's . . ."

"Not yet," he says. "In a couple of days."

"Going home," she says.

"To the cabin first." This time the smile is almost flirty. "Better wait and see what she and her boyfriend have planned."

"Shit," she says, and she buries her own head in her own hands. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

With gentle fingers under her chin, he lifts her head to look at him. The smile is gone.

"I thought . . .," she says.

"You thought what?"

She starts laughing.

"Thank God," she says.

He's confused.

"Thank fucking God." She looks up at the ceiling. "I didn't just say that." She raises her arms, in praise and apology, the way she might do if she were mocking faith, which she isn't. "Thank you, God. Seriously. Fuck."

The last thing she wants is for him to start apologizing, so she hugs him, tight, and she kisses his cheek and his forehead and his cheek again.

"You must be hungry," she says. She starts to stand, but he's taken hold of her wrist so she's stuck, sort of leaning over him. She can't stop smiling. "She's going home," she says.

Without warning or ceremony or permission, he pulls her closer, and he kisses her before letting go of her arm. His stubble is prickly and his lips are soft and he smells like aftershave and sweat and alcohol. There might have been a little tongue in there, too.

"Okay," she says, frazzled. She stands and takes a step back, beyond arm's reach. "Cheese and crackers."

She's certain she has no cheese and no crackers, but those are the words that come out. She starts smoothing down the front of her pajama pants for no practical reason, and she bites her bottom lip. Her mind is a swirling ball of light and fuzz.

Before she makes a complete fool of herself or has a seizure, she goes into the kitchen. There's leftover eggplant parmesan and three beers in the fridge and some almonds and a jar of salsa in the pantry, and Cheerios on the counter, but no milk. She warms up the eggplant and takes it out to him with a beer.

Determined not to abandon him despite his lapse in judgment, she sits on the coffee table, off to the side, close, but not too close.

"Vic," he says.

He's holding the plate in front of him as though he's considering handing it back.

"That shit's good," she says.

"Vic."

"Shouldn't you call Lizzie?" she says with not a shred of snark. "Let her know you're okay."

He stares at her.

She points to the plate. "It'll get cold."

He nods and he takes a bite. Apparently he realizes how hungry he is because from there he shovels the rest in and downs half the beer while she drinks hers, and watches him.

He puts the plate down next to her, and he says, "It didn't work out."

"In the past day and a half it didn't work out?"

"We're different people."

"We're all different people, Walt."

He shrugs.

"You can't make a decision like that during a time like this."

"I think I already did," he says.

"Well maybe you two need to talk."

He seems to be considering it. Then he takes another drink of his beer, and he says, "Justin?"

"What about him?"

"I was afraid he'd be here with you."

"And you came anyway?"

He starts picking at the label on the bottle.

"You were right to come," she says.

"Where else would I go?"

"To your girlfriend's house."

"What's the story with Justin?" he says. He won't be deterred.

"No story. He was my date for the shindig."

"Do you love him?"

She's becoming restless, feeling cornered. "Do I love him?"

"Yeah," he says.

"No. I don't love him. I barely know him."

"I don't want to be alone tonight," he says like it's a completely normal transition.

"You did not just say that."

"Why?" he says.

"Where do I start?"

She picks up his plate and takes it into the kitchen.

He follows, saying, "I didn't mean it that way."

While she rinses it and puts it in the dishwasher, he leans against the counter, watching.

After drying her hands and draping the towel neatly over the oven door handle and actively avoiding eye contact, she looks at him.

He nods his head towards the living room. "About that," he says.

"No," she says. "No. We've been here before. We're not having that conversation."

"I just thought—"

"Well, don't. Don't think. Don't talk."

He bows his head, an act of shame, though she doesn't believe that's what it is.

"Look, Walt. I'm thrilled that Cady's okay and that you're okay. But we're not talking about this again, and we're not doing that." She points to the living room as though there's even the slightest possibility he wouldn't know what she's talking about.

"I didn't mean it that way," he says again.

"I don't want to know how you meant it," she says. "However you meant it, I'm not fucking my boss, and I'm definitely not fucking another woman's man."

"There was no mention of fucking," he says, bitter emphasis on the last word.

"Where do you think that leads?"

Her face flushes. For some reason she has a flashback to Lizzie on the porch that morning, fresh from his bed.

She goes into the bedroom and comes out with two blankets and a pillow and drops them on the couch.

"Sleep there," she says. "The last thing you need is a DUI."

"I'm all right."

"Maybe."

He nods, shifts his weight.

"I'll make you coffee and breakfast," she says. "We'll go to the hospital first thing in the morning then I'll go into the station."

"All right," he says.

He starts unbuckling his belt, then he seems to reconsider, and he picks up one of the blankets instead.

She leaves him to it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning: This one contains additional qualities of M.**

* * *

Chapter 6

His jacket is heavy in her lap.

Her head throbs as she traces the jagged edges of the bullet hole with her index finger. Just a few more inches, she thinks. Just a few more inches and that would have been that. Then what?

He pulls his shirt onto one shoulder, watching her. Still, after all this time, she doesn't want him to see her cry.

What then?

"It'll be all right," he says. "A little needle and thread and I'll be back to normal."

He pulls the other sleeve on and holds the front panels together, like she hasn't seen his chest before. Like the image of it isn't one of the primary sources of sexual frustration in her life.

She stands up. "Yeah," she says.

She offers him the coat, but he doesn't take it. Instead, he touches the hand that's holding it, sort of caresses it. When her lip quivers and a tear rolls down her face, he pulls her to him.

It's such a different hug from before, from the night she was certain Cady was dead. She'd been so sure she didn't have it in her to be there for him. Now, after everything, she doesn't doubt.

Their whole bodies are in on this one. The skin and the soft hair of his chest are warm against her bare cheek, his thighs firm against hers, and his strong, calloused hand on the back of her head, stroking.

She drops his jacket on the chair and slides the freed hand up to his shoulder, turning and tucking into him, creating their own little human alcove. There's no thinking involved. This is all there is. It's all down to the next move, and then the next, because she's here, and so is he.

She stands on her toes and she kisses him, differently, her hand on his cheek, fingers in the wavy hair at the back of his neck. His head doesn't jerk back, not even in delayed reaction. He moves towards her, and they meld, lips and dewy skin and tongues and air and gaspy words: _Vic_ and _I know_ and _Walt_ and _I know_ and _Holy shit_ _._

 _I know_ _._

 _I know._

 _I know._

Voices in the hall, not too close, tug at them, warn them. He reaches over and closes the door with the softest click, and he eases her up against it. His hips thrust into her.

 _Sorry_.

 _I'm not._

 _Me neither._

He's hard. She runs her palm over the ridge in his jeans. It's a deliberate act, no room for misinterpretation. They're nose to nose, in each other's eyes, breathing hard. He squeezes her ass.

 _Not here_.

He kisses her neck, sucks a little, but not enough to leave a mark she hopes, though she doesn't care. Not really.

 _Where?_

He cups her breast. Her nose and her fingers are in his thick hair. He runs his slick, hot tongue over the swell at the top, and she moans.

 _Anywhere_. Her hips respond. _Anywhere_.

It's not suspicious that they leave together. They have to. She came with him, her driving while he held her clean T-shirt against the wound, gritting his teeth. Plus, they work together. A little more questionable is him carrying his jacket in front of his crotch, and the red, patchy flush of arousal around her chest and neck, and his plumped lips and messy hair, and the whisker burn around her mouth. But it's probably not all that obvious.

They're almost to the double doors when Weston intercepts them.

"Just a moment, Sheriff," he says as he gestures for one of the intake nurses behind the glass to come.

Vic keeps her eyes on the white linoleum.

"Deputies Connally and Ferguson brought the truck by," Weston says.

The nurse hands Vic the keys.

"Thanks," she says.

"Deputy Connally's outside Gilbert's room," Weston says to Walt. "He needs to talk to you."

Walt looks at her.

And here it is so soon, over just like that. Maybe she's being dramatic, but what's the difference?

She gives him the shadow of a shrug and the slight head tilt that no one else would even notice, but he does, and he knows what it means. He takes a deep breath and rubs his chin.

The sun is setting orange and pink across the rolling brown fields to the west as she drives home. She can smell him, feel his lips and his hands on her.

It's for the best, she realizes. They wouldn't have stopped, and there's too much blood from too many sources on her hands and her sleeves and a little on her face somehow, and some on his jacket in two different places and more on his shirt and his hands, not to mention the other problems with it.

She takes a shower then she gets in bed. She hasn't slept in two days, and for a while she does, but then she's awake again. The headache has subsided and been replaced by a GIF of the body bag landing next to her on the cold cement cellar floor followed by another one of the drive up the dirt road into the property, the last hundred yards when she understood with the worst heartache she'd ever known what she'd find there.

Over and over and over and over.

But she didn't find it. She found him, bleeding and stunned and holding his arm, while Gilbert writhed in the dirt with his offspring and cronies huddled around him, holding rags to the wound and praising his courage, and reassuring him of their allegiance and of the long, warped family future they expected him to be a part of. They didn't go after Walt. They can be relied on to follow the Frontier code of honor.

It's close to midnight when she surrenders.

She never heard the phone, but there's a message from him from two hours earlier: clearing his throat, just checking to make sure she's okay, wondering if she needs anything, clearing his throat again, heading home to take a shower, thinking about her, call any time, whatever she wants.

When she pulls into the yard, the living room light is on, but the porch light isn't. There's no movement behind the curtains.

As the seconds tick past, a frothy panic builds in her until, for whatever reason, she changes her mind. She's turning the truck around to go when the porch light comes on. Then the door opens, and he's propping the screen with his foot, looking out at her there in the truck in the clear, moonless dark.

She's afraid the sight of her here like this is triggering some realization in him about propriety and integrity. He comes down the front steps—there are steps now—in his socks again, and his jeans, which are sagging kind of low in the front without the belt.

She doesn't do anything. She just sits there and lets it unfold.

He walks around the front of the truck, through the headlights. He's wearing a blue sweatshirt she's never seen before.

He opens the door and says, "Vic?"

She turns to face him with the engine still running.

"What is it?" he says, his hands on her thighs like it's nothing.

He reaches across her lap and turns the key, then he takes her face in his hands and he kisses her with the least amount of restraint she's experienced from him so far.

She shakes her head, and for a long, long time, they look at each other, have the wordless conversation they need to have about what she understands now that she didn't understand yesterday.

"Vic," he says.

"I just," she says.

"What?"

She puts her hands on top of his, but they don't stay there very long because he lifts her up. For a second she fears she'll be too heavy for him, fears he thinks she weighs less than she really does, but he seems to be managing, so she wraps her legs tight around his waist. He closes the door and holds her up against it, kissing her again out there in the cool summer air under a spray of stars.

He carries her up the steps and into the house, and he closes the door with his foot.

He knows what she's there for. She's relieved he doesn't pretend not to.

He carries her straight into the bedroom where the bed is turned down and the sheets are rumpled on one side, and he sets her down.

She pulls her sweatshirt off over her head. He pulls his off then he lies down and pulls her down next to him, and they're kissing again, chests together, no barrier between them anymore.

He touches her everywhere: her bare arms and her back, and her stomach, and he squeezes her ass, both cheeks, and grinds into her and she grinds back. He unclasps her bra and unbuttons and unzips her jeans. He isn't awkward about it like she would have expected. He's smooth.

She unbuttons his jeans and slips her hand inside and wraps her fingers around him. He pulses in her hand. He groans and grabs her wrist, and she eases off.

 _Wait for me._

 _I've been waiting._

From there, it's all fingers and lips and hot breath and tongues and tugging and sliding until every item of clothing is off and on the floor. Not once does he go back to that thing he does, that looking in her eyes as though he's got something to say.

For the first time since she's known him, he doesn't seem to have anything to say that he isn't already saying.

Then he's inside her, just like that, stretching and so hard. And finally, they're both moving in the same direction.

Afterwards, he holds her. With a gentle touch she wouldn't have thought he'd be capable of, he explores her body, and he kisses her, and he smiles a lot.

Later, after they've gone through it all again, slower, they fall together into a dreamy sleep. At some point, he stirs and she stirs. He gets up, and he covers her with the comforter.

"Don't go anywhere," he whispers.

"Where would I go?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, so first of all, it can't be happily ever after yet because this is only the end of Season 3.**

 **Also, this scene is actually out of order. This happened before the Population 25 stuff, but for my purposes, it worked better after.**

 **And as always, thank you for reading and commenting and PMing. I always enjoy reading what you have to say, or just knowing you're reading even if you aren't saying anything.**

* * *

Chapter 7

She's playing the morally superior deputy to Branch's loose cannon.

All night out there in the wilds she sacrifices her own comfort and hygiene to ensure no one else gets stuffed full of peyote and deposited in some wide-open space. Or at least that's the story she's going with.

In the morning, she wakes up in her musty sleeping bag on the bank of a creek under bright sunless sky. Her mouth is pasty and her neck is stiff, and she has to pee, which has been an ordeal.

Branch is crouched on the bank stirring something with a metal spoon in a metal dish. It's a sound in the same general category as nails on a chalkboard.

When he looks over his shoulder at her, he doesn't seem surprised to see her looking back.

"I made breakfast," he says. "Eggs."

"Sounds delicious. But I think I'll pass."

She stares up at the high clouds. Life would be less challenging, she realizes, if she didn't spend so much of it defending and deflecting and avoiding. At the very least, she wouldn't have stayed married so long. And she wouldn't be here.

She props herself up on her elbows.

"I mean that sounds totally disgusting," she says, and it comes off as more of an apology than she intends.

"I know what you meant," he says. "Again, if you want to head back, I'll understand."

"No, I'm good. I'll wait till Walt can get here."

She hasn't said his name for two days, and she tries to play it cool. Of course, Walt won't be getting here, mostly because as far as she knows, he has no clue where they are, and no interest in finding out.

"You think I can't be out here on my own," Branch says, squinting out across the water.

She sits all the way up and extricates herself from the bag. With her boots still on, it's not so easy.

"Someone has to act in the best interests of the good citizens of Absaroka," she says, out of breath from the exertion involved in standing up.

He scoffs.

The sight of the goop he's eating triggers a wave of nausea.

"No one got hurt," he says.

"So you don't deny it?"

He gives her that bitter, angry-eyed grin.

"Deny what?" he says.

She rolls her eyes and takes off down the bank. "I have to use the facilities."

"Sometimes you have to break a few rules," he calls after her, "to get the answers you need. Who do you think I learned that from?"

She stops and turns. "Don't compare yourself to Walt," she snaps at him.

She's not even sure where it comes from, but she knows before he responds that it's the chink in her armor.

"Right," he says, bruised red eyes glaring up at her. "I forgot. You and Walt have a _special_ relationship."

There it is, back in her face where it probably belongs.

She watches him scrape the remnants of mushy eggs out of the metal dish and spoon them into his mouth.

Does he know? she wonders.

She starts walking again.

What are the chances that in addition to fixating 24-7 on the dead guy who tried to kill him, he's also put the pieces about her and Walt together? Or that, at this point, he'd even care if he did.

And what pieces? That's the real question. There aren't many.

In fact, if you were to go into the past with a scalpel and remove that twenty-four-hour period, replacing it with a fresh, untainted twenty-four-hour period, and sew it back up neatly, no one would ever know because that's really all there was to it. There was no prelude, and there was no spillage into the coming days. It was entirely contained in the span of time between the embrace in the hospital, and his departure for Denver the next night.

It started, it happened, it happened again, it happened a third time, then she went home. Then it happened once more before he took off, and now she hasn't seen him, at least not up close and alone, in well over a week.

She doesn't really believe Branch knows. She doesn't even think he's grasping at straws.

If she stops focusing on herself for a minute—her desire and her embarrassment and her current physical and emotional discomfort—and shifts at least some of her attention to him, she can see where it's coming from: He's not holding it up as leverage. He's telling her how alone he feels. While she's got what he perceives to be this "special" relationship, he's got everyone treating him like he's lost his mind.

Despite new evidence that maybe they should, nobody believes him. She's starting to, but right now, she can't even give him that.

Besides, special relationship her ass.

She stayed at the cabin that night and on late into the morning. Neither of them were expected at the station. They spent most of the time naked and wrapped around each other.

Strange though when she thought back on it was the fact that they'd said very little. He'd been sweet and attentive, and there was some of the usual in-the-moment chatter about here-and-now feelings, mostly physical, with maybe a little, I'm-so-glad-you're-here. But in the grand scheme, there was minimal communication.

He told her he loved her tits, and surprisingly, that's the word he used, but he didn't tell her how he felt about her. He admitted somewhat graphically that he'd thought about what he'd like to do to her, but he didn't expound on the evolution of his affection, if there even was one. When she left, he didn't promise to call her or tell her he wanted to do this again at some point, let alone every chance he got, which is what she would have said to him given almost any opening. But there wasn't one, and now she's glad she kept it to herself.

She held on to almost everything.

When it came down to it, maybe because she sensed the direction of the tide early on, she said even less than he did. She made no body comments whatsoever, nor did she mention, even lightly, how much she'd yearned for him for so long now.

Obviously, she didn't tell him she loved him.

She feels foolish.

Branch tries to get rid of her a few more times as they break camp. When she won't go, he kicks the pack towards her.

"You can carry that then," he says.

He shows her the intricate route he's drawn on the map before they take off downriver.

He claims to have gotten into Ridges' mind, seen the world through his eyes. Clearly, he's losing it, but maybe so is she. And maybe in some situations, losing it is appropriate, understandable even, if you're the understanding type.

It was around noon that day that she told Walt she had to go, had stuff to take care of. There wasn't any stuff, but she was becoming restless, feeling as though she couldn't breathe. Not physically exactly. It was more like her soul couldn't breathe, and it was cutting off the oxygen to her brain, so she couldn't think, either.

She just needed to get back to the mundane for a while, give herself some room to process.

When he called late that night with his warm bedroom voice, it was all the foreplay she needed. He said he'd be gone for a few days and he wanted to see her first. How could she have expected herself to say no to that? And why would she have?

She'd never known him to be gone for anything, and she might have benefited from giving more thought to that, but she was busy taking a shower and scrambling to find something hot to wear that didn't look like she was trying too hard.

After all that, though, it didn't matter what she wore. The second he crossed the threshold and the door was shut behind him, clothes were coming off. He stripped her of her yoga pants and led her by the hand with the pants still attached to one leg to his spot on the couch. She kicked them off while he unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants, and dropped them. It was literally the sexiest thing she'd ever witnessed. Without even bothering to take them all the way off, he pulled her onto his lap, onto him, and they were at it again.

He didn't stay long.

He was on his way to Denver, he said, driving through the night. Could be gone a few days. And he had something to tell her.

Maybe she should have been nervous, because after setting it up, he pulled his pants back on and tucked his shirt in and buckled his belt, and he even smoothed down his hair. So she followed suit and rounded up her pants and tank top and put them on.

He sat on the coffee table like she'd done that night to create some distance between them. She'd been so certain then that she'd never let this happen no matter how much she wanted him.

He looked sad, and she understood even then that it wasn't because he was going to miss her. On some level, she knew none of this had anything to do with her whatsoever, and it was best for her to think of it that way than to see it as the central plot and their interlude as comic relief.

"I'm getting close," he said.

She knew what he was talking about. They'd talked about it before all this, and she knew it was one of the reasons he hadn't been able to heal after Martha's death. But it wasn't the only reason. She knew that, too.

In his eyes, at that point, he was already gone.

He never did call, not that he'd said he would. He was gone four nights. Any updates about what he was doing and when he'd be back had come from Ruby, and those were vague.

When he got back there was a lot of low-talk behind closed doors, and Lucian coming in through the private entrance and not stopping in to ogle her, and Walt out of the office a lot. He didn't need her to ride with him.

Once, when he'd been home a couple of days, she went into his office and sat down. It took him a minute to look up, and when he did, he didn't even seem entirely sure who she was.

She asked him if he wanted to come over for dinner. He sort of froze, and he tried to smile, but it was fake. She doesn't even remember what he said. It plays in her memory as the sound of a jet engine revving up. He did say, "Thanks, Vic," the way he does, but before she even stood all the way up, he was off again in his mind.

She wanted to hurt him. Or to quit. But he was closing in on whoever it was now, and she couldn't leave him to wrap up the most important case of his life alone.

It's close to sunset when they come out of the hills. Branch takes the pack from her and throws it in the back of the truck with the other gear.

"Thanks for sticking with me, Vic," he says. "No one else has."

Five or six insulting remarks flip through her mind, but in the end, she just says, "You're welcome."

He removes his hat and gazes off in the direction they just came from.

"I wouldn't be him for anything right now," he says.

"Who?"

He looks at her like he thinks she's slow and pities her for it.

"Walt," he says.

"You wouldn't be him for anything ever," she says.

She knows what she's doing.

"He's pulled it all together. Any minute now he'll blow."

He keeps his eyes on her, the muscle in his jaw flexing and releasing.

"Ridges," she says.

"Has to be eating him up," he says.

"So that's what this is about? Being right?"

He turns his head, so he's looking away from her in that arrogant, dismissive way that makes her want to punch him in the throat.

"Why not?" he says with a shrug. "If he figures out who hired Ridges to snuff Martha, that's a bonus."

"You're such an asshole."

"People are more comfortable with me that way." He slaps the side of the truck and opens the driver's side door. "Let's go find Walt."

"You should probably do that on your own," she says.


	8. Chapter 8

**Happy summer, everyone! There may be a couple more chapters after this one, hopefully within the next two weeks. : )**

* * *

Chapter 8

When she enters the office an hour after leaving for the night, she calls out to Walt to let him know she's back. He grumbles some response.

It doesn't bug her the way it might have a month ago. She gets it now, in part thanks to Branch. But the situation with Cady is the last straw.

At her desk, she clicks on the lamp and opens her laptop and the file. She reads through the letter, cuts some stuff, adds some other stuff, runs the spell and the grammar checker, reads it one more time. Then she prints it and folds it neatly and slips it into an envelope. She writes his name on it. For the splittest of seconds she's embarrassed about the presentation: his first name scrawled off-center, awkward and inappropriately familiar, trying way too hard not to look like she's trying too hard.

She won't allow herself to start over.

His door is half-open, and he's there at his desk, forearms on the blotter, focused on the empty air in front of him. When she knocks on the frame, his eyes snap up to her face. He sits back in his chair. He smiles as though he'd forgotten about her, but the memory, when recovered, is a pleasant one.

"Hey," she says all casual and bland.

He pushes back from the desk. "Hey," he says.

So she enters because that's what indifference would look like. The heels of her boots crack thinly like powder caps across the floor.

In the same chill vein, she drops the envelope on his desk as opposed to handing it to him. She's not fooling anyone, except apparently him.

He's frozen, eyebrows high as he stares down at the white rectangle between them, like he thinks the letter might be laced with anthrax.

"What?" she says.

He looks up at her and all the way in for the first time since that night. Her stomach clenches.

"Vic," he says kind of as a sigh, as though she's wearing him out.

He sits up straighter.

The old her, the her she was before she got all moony and tangled in his web, wouldn't have put up with that.

 _Bite me_ , she thinks. But that's the difference.

He rubs his two-day growth, the scratchiness ear-splitting in the loaded silence.

"I know . . .," he starts, then he clears his throat. "I know I left you hanging."

"No," she says.

He did, but she doesn't want a fucking apology for it. And if this is what it takes for him to give a shit, she would have dropped an envelope on his desk a month ago.

"You've been preoccupied," she says.

It's the wrong word, but there doesn't seem to be a right one. It's almost inconceivable what he's going through. She does, however, understand enough to know it would be ludicrous for anyone, least of all her, to expect anything from him at this point.

She clears her own throat. "Don't worry about it," she says.

His brow crinkles.

"What?" she says.

She could have been home by now. She doesn't need to do this tonight. In fact, she's not sure she needs to do it at all: Cady's fine. Sam Poteet is fine. And David Ridges really, truly isn't dead.

"I, um, . . .," he says.

"Forget about it." She leans over and picks up the envelope, slaps it against her palm. "That's not what this is about," she says, though she fears it's a lie.

He stands, puts his hands on his hips, shakes and bows his head.

When he looks up, his blue eyes are sharp and clear and serious. "It wasn't a good time," he says. "And that's on me, Vic."

Is it? she thinks. On him? She started it after all. Then he did, but then truth be told, she did.

"It's nothing," she says.

Now he looks confused, but he nods.

"I mean," she says, "it's not important now."

He holds out his hand for the letter, and she gives it to him.

"I don't want to read this," he says with the vulnerable grin that makes her want to hug him, and hurt him.

"Well, you have to."

He slaps the envelope against his thigh and shifts his weight.

Only then does it occur to her that he thinks she's resigning—the bull is in her pen so to speak. It's not, but in this isolated, pulsating moment, he believes she has the power.

If this is a choice, she realizes, she needs to choose it more often.

He exhales loudly and opens the envelope, pulls the letter out with finger and thumb and unfolds it. She watches as his eyes scan the paper.

Then he looks up, newly baffled.

"This is about Branch," he says.

It's not ideal, but she does feel better.

\

Two days later he's there when Branch tries to kill her, which is fortunate.

Also fortunate is the fact that he's not there when Branch spits venom at her from behind bars, laying it on thick about how she betrayed him. Of course, he's right: She did betray him, and that probably explains how she gets roped into taking the keys to the Ghost of Ridges' vehicle and semi-committing to processing the scene.

Close to sunset, she's out there on the bridge sitting in the driver's seat of the gold Olds. As she listens to the last message on Ridges' phone for the third time, the smell of dusty oil and warm vinyl intermingles with the idea of a betrayal far broader and deeper than her own.

When the Bronco pulls up, she snaps the phone shut and tosses it to the passenger side. She fully expects Walt to lay into her for taking orders from the incarcerated loon. As painful as that sounds, at least it will delay the inevitable moment when she's forced to watch him process Nighthorse's recent voicemail to the long-dead Dog Soldier.

She steps out of the car and watches him approach. He doesn't look pissed. If anything, he seems guarded, or tentative. When he's close, she says, "Hey."

"Ferg get a hold of you?" he says.

"No." She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and looks at it. "No," she says again and holds it up for him to see, but his eyes are across the bridge somewhere, along the bank of the river, then back over his shoulder towards the vehicles before looking back at her.

She tilts her head. "What's going on?"

Pressing his lips together, he rubs the back of his neck. "Branch got out."

"Escaped?" she says. "How?"

"Not escaped exactly. Barlow showed up. Strong-armed Ferg."

"Huh," she says, crossing her arms. "Okay."

His eyes take the tour again then he looks at Ridges' car and her stomach plummets.

"You probably shouldn't be alone tonight," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean with Branch out there."

"I'm a trained law enforcement officer, Walt."

"So is he."

"But I'm a better shot," she says.

He doesn't even crack a smile.

"You could spend the night at the cabin."

She laughs. "I don't think so."

"Vic," he says. "This is serious."

She cocks her hip and stares at him.

"I agree, Walt. It is serious. Someone could get hurt."

He squints at her. Then he takes a deep breath, and he looks back at the car.

"All right," he says. "What've we got here?"

She crouches to grab a pair of extra-large gloves from the kit.

"There's something you need to hear," she says.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank you for reading and commenting and PMing! It's always appreciated. : )**

* * *

Chapter 9

As soon as they're out on the sidewalk, he says. "I'm so sorry, Vic."

She's got a wad of Kleenex Nighthorse's secretary gave her pressed against her nose, and her head is throbbing and humming.

"It's okay," she says, her voice a nasal gurgle.

It seems like she's been saying that to him a lot lately.

He puts his hands on her shoulders and turns her to face him. "How do you feel? Are you dizzy?"

"No," she says. "I'm fine."

He takes the hand holding the wad of bloody tissue and moves it to examine the injury. When blood starts flowing over her lip again, he replaces it.

"It's starting to swell," he says.

"I imagine it is. I just got punched in the face."

"Hard."

"It doesn't feel broken," she says.

"We need to get you checked out anyway."

"Oh, please. If everyone you punched ran crying to the hospital, they'd have to open a new wing."

He smiles.

"Back off, Walt."

Then, as if it's a completely normal and acceptable interaction between sheriff and deputy, he caresses her cheek with his thumb, right there on the sidewalk, in downtown Durant, on a sunny weekday afternoon.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he says.

Despite the pounding in her head and the overall brain-fuzz and the simmering annoyance at the reminder of this borderland they exist in together, she feels herself softening into him, responding.

"Come on," he says, guiding her with his hand, big and warm, on her lower back. "You'll have two black eyes pretty soon if we don't get some ice on that."

"I'd look like a badass."

"You don't need black eyes for that."

She looks up at him. He winks.

"You sure know how to flatter a woman."

/

On the drive over to the Red Pony he doesn't say much. He's thinking about Nighthorse. How could he not be?

They'd have to be both technologically impaired and stupid to boot for that recording to have convinced them Nighthorse wasn't involved in Ridges' shadiness. If anything, it makes Nighthorse seem more suspect. To her, there's a strong possibility the recording is bullshit, and she assumes Walt's on the same page. But she can't bring it up because as soon as it's out there, it becomes the latest in an endless string of obstacles.

And that's yet another symptom of her selfishness. It's along the lines of ratting Branch out instead of helping him when she already knew, at least on some level, that he was right. All because she wanted whatever remaining crumbs she could get from this guy who might want her at times, but in reality has no room for her in his life.

"Vic?"

His voice startles her.

He's got his right arm stretched out, right hand on the wheel, and the worried look on his face again.

"What?"

He's still a bloody mess himself. The scrape on the side of his face is wet and pulpy and flecked with dirt.

"I asked you how you're feeling," he says.

"Fine. I was just spacing out."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure I wasn't slipping into a coma."

He reaches over and puts his hand on her thigh. "Don't say that," he says.

As good as it feels, she reminds herself it's coming from a place of guilt.

/

Inside, he has her sit down at a table. Henry isn't around and the place is empty, so Walt goes behind the bar himself then comes back with a couple of rags and a plastic bag filled with ice.

He scoots a chair next to her.

"Let me see," he says, moving her hand and taking the bloody Kleenexes from her.

He pokes at the bridge of her nose.

"Ow. Fuck."

A drop of blood splats on the table.

"Still dripping," he says, handing her small pile of clean napkins.

She holds them against her nose for a few seconds then looks at them.

"It's barely anything," she says.

He tears a napkin in half then in quarters and makes a couple of cylindrical wads, like mini tampons, then he moves her hand again.

"Here," he says.

"I'll do that."

She takes them from him and turns away to shove a stopper in each nostril, then she turns back to him and lets him hold the ice against the top of her nose as she mouth-breathes.

"Thanks," she says.

"You're welcome. Want a beer."

"Hell yes."

She holds the ice while he goes behind the bar again and comes back with two drafts. She puts the ice down to take a sip.

"I'm really sorry," he says again.

"Stop," she says. "Shit happens."

She picks up the other rag and dips it in her beer then dabs it gingerly against the side of his face. He flinches.

"That's a pretty nasty scrape."

"I don't know how it happened."

"You got in a tussle with a homicidal Dog Soldier."

Visibly he deflates, as though all the talk of wounds and regret had given him some reprieve from the real tragedy. Now she's dumped the burden back on him.

"I'm sorry, Walt."

"I still have to prove it," he says.

"Nighthorse hired Ridges to . . . ."

"Looks like."

People talk about "senseless" murders as though one that makes sense is easier to digest. This one makes sense. People kill for far worse reasons than millions of dollars and the promise of economic security for a community of historically downtrodden people. As far as she can tell, though, that does nothing to soften the blow in this case.

"Here," he says, picking up the rag-covered ice pack and placing it on her nose again so their arms are crossed.

For a while, he's off in his mind, his eyes fixed on some point across the room near the pool tables. He's so close she can feel him breathing, and over time, the breathing evens out until she's off in her own head.

When he looks at her again, the sadness has lifted, at least for the time being.

"Look at us," he says.

"I know. We're a mess."

"Yeah," he says. "But I mean look at us."

It's how it should be, she thinks, but she doesn't say it. She'd never say it.

From across the bar, she hears the office door open, hears voices, and senses eyes on them, but she doesn't look.

"In a different time," he says.

She drops the hand with the rag, and with the other she gently takes his wrist and moves his hand with the ice down to the table.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she says, in almost a whisper.

"You and me."

"It's over now," she says. "Isn't it?"

He nods. "Yeah."

"So?"

"It's over."

"Okay then," she says, but the way he's looking at her, she knows it's anything but.


	10. Chapter 10

**I wrote most of this months ago but didn't like it all that much. Since I just heard today that there's a release date for the final season, I figured I'd finish it up (the chapter, I mean) and get it out there. It's probably not the same attention to detail as my previous works. But whatever. I figured I'd share it.**

 **I hope you're all well. : )**

* * *

Chapter 10

She doesn't know what takes her so long to figure it out.

At the time, she just thinks he's being a martyr and maybe a little self-righteous. She thinks he's being Walt. There's no feeling of rejection, and she's not confused. She gets it: He's sacrificing himself to do what's right for the wife he couldn't save. He's doing what he needs to do. It's who he is.

She never feels even a twinge of jealousy over it.

For now at least it's over. Maybe they'll find their way back to each other and maybe they won't, but at least she's not left wondering, or left with that icy lump of unreciprocated love lodged behind her ribs. There was reciprocation. If ever she'd doubted, it was cleared up when he socked her in the nose that day.

Sometimes she misses him, but she understands. And she still sees him. It's all right.

That is, it's all right until the eeriness descends, the tight silence, the entire absence of personality, as though his soul is being held captive somewhere, and now this remote-operated, hollow-eyed casing scuffs around the office, and sits in his chair, and barks the occasional unconvincing order, and doesn't shave, or apparently shower.

Henry joins him on his last trip to Denver. They aren't gone long, and when they return, there's hushed talk of feathers and Ridges and Nighthorse and Miller Beck. Walt's emptiness becomes the eye in a building storm.

In the stillness, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation leaves messages he ignores. Everyone's on edge about it except him.

A few days later, she hears him tell Ruby he'll be out of the office for the rest of the day, and it's barely noon. After all that silence, he's cagey. Once when she gets up to go to the bathroom, he's standing in his doorway frozen, staring at her.

"What?" she says.

He doesn't say anything. He just keeps those haunted eyes on her. She doesn't push it, and when she comes out, the door to his office is closed.

She's out on a call when he leaves.

Even then she doesn't put it together. Not really.

Later that same day, though, after she's already gone to the gym and taken a shower and changed into shorts, the eeriness invades her somehow. The icy lump pops in her chest and spreads.

The afternoon is bright and blustery, but it doesn't feel like spring. She takes the left turn onto his property, leaving the pavement. She's had plenty of time to plan, but she still doesn't know what she'll say. She'll probably start with _What the fuck_? and go from there.

The driveway is long. The truck flushes dust up into the paling afternoon sky, creating a rearview haze. By the time she sees the cabin, she's livid and heavy with the tears she's straining against.

 _You asshole._ That's what she'll say. _You selfish, clueless asshole._

The thing is, she knew his ambivalence about the two of them had to do with what lay ahead, but she didn't understand he wasn't planning on being around for much more of it.

She pulls into the yard. Some seconds pass before she registers the Bronco's absence and the open front door. She gets out, eyes locked on the blackness beyond the threshold. She stands with the truck door as a shield. Her sidearm is at home, in the nightstand drawer, and she's wearing yoga pants and flip flops. It dawns on her the degree to which she didn't think it through, any of it, starting way back, long before they were lovers for 24 hours, long before she left Philly for this godforsaken place.

Why the fuck didn't she say something when she had the chance three weeks ago, or yesterday, or this morning?

"Walt!" she calls.

There's a slow knocking of boots on the hardwood inside the house. A burst of adrenaline has her hand instinctively rising and easing back towards her belt, and since there is no belt, the hand hovers there in denial. She waits, shallow breaths, ears pricked.

After a minute or even two, she thinks maybe she imagined it. She leaves the metal barrier and takes a few slow steps across the dusty driveway towards the porch. Then she hears the steps again.

"Walt?" Her voice quivers.

There's motion in the blackness. Her heart sinks. As she's stepping back towards the safety of the vehicle, a tall figure appears in the doorway. It's not Walt.

"Vic?"

"Henry?"

She walks over to the porch. He comes out to the top of the stairs. His face is drawn, and there's tension in his jaw.

"Where's Walt?" she says, her voice crackling.

A tear makes it all the way to her top lip before she notices. It rolls over the ridge and into her mouth, salty. She doesn't wipe it away. If she didn't notice, maybe he didn't, either.

"If you know something that I do not, now would be a good time to share."

"What do you mean?"

She knows what he means.

"It was just once," she says. "I mean, it was more than once. Four times actually. But just one day."

He looks confused at first. Then the light comes on. "Ah, okay," he says, unfazed. "You are right. I did not know that. But that is not what I meant."

"I know." She bites her bottom lip. "But the part you should know won't make sense without that part."

He waits, arms crossed, watching her. It doesn't come across as pressure.

"He said it's over," she says. Something about hearing the words come out of her mouth, about releasing the information into the universe, makes her ache the way she probably should have but up to this point hasn't. "I thought he meant us. That. I thought he meant we were over."

"But?" he says.

"But I think he meant it's _over_."

He takes another deep breath. Hands on hips he scans the field, and the hills in the distance, and the sky, as though whatever he says next will originate out there.

When he looks back at her, he seems to suddenly be aware of the distance between them, the height differential, with her at the bottom of the steps and him on the porch. He squats down. His smile is remorseful, almost as though in addition to everything else he must be feeling, he has some sympathy for her.

"Martha's ashes are gone," he says. "They have been on the same shelf in the kitchen for four years. Walt was waiting."

"Until he had the guy."

"Yes."

"Does he? Have the guy?" she asks.

"He believes he does. I am not convinced."

"He thinks it's Nighthorse."

He doesn't respond.

She nods. "Then that's what he meant."

"I have to go, Vic," he says, standing up. "I am sorry Walt brought you into this."

"I brought myself in." She quickly wipes the tear, and another that slipped out while they were talking. "I'll go with you," she says.

"It is best that I go alone."

/

All night she waits, not sure what she's waiting for. There is no rational reason to think Henry will give her an update, and she's certain Walt won't.

If Walt was dead, or on his way to jail, or even if Nighthorse was dead, someone would call. No one does.

At two in the morning, she finally goes into her bedroom and tries to get some sleep. Instead she replays that conversation, over and over, what she should have said, what she should have done, and she repeatedly drives the thought away that says if he's capable of this, it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

So she revises history:

 _"_ _Look at us," he said._

 _"_ _I know. We're a mess."_

 _"_ _Yeah," he said. "But I mean look at us."_

 _"_ _This is how it should be," she said. "It's stupid to be afraid to say that, so I'm saying it: This is how it should be."_

 _He tried to look away, towards the office. A door had opened. There were voices. They were being watched, but she didn't care. She kept her eyes on his face until he came back to her._

 _"_ _In a different time," he said._

 _She dropped the hand with the rag, and took his wrist gently, lowering it to the table. Her nose was sore, the skin stretched tight and throbbing with her pulse. The plug in each nostril miraculously disappeared._

 _She stood. His eyes widened._

 _"_ _No," she said, sliding onto his lap, encircling his neck with her arms. In his good ear, she whispered, "This is a different time."_

 _As evidence, she kissed him. Before long, he kissed her back, and she stuck with it until any semblance of resistance had drained out of him. Then she stood up, and sat in her own chair again._

 _After refolding the rag, dipping it in her beer, and dabbing it against the wound on the side of his face, she returned the ice pack to the bridge of her nose._

 _"Don't tell me it's over_ _," she said._

And finally she slept.


	11. Chapter 11

**Here's another one! Just in case it seems like I'm purposely torturing these characters and the readers, a little reminder . . . I'm following the series with this story and trying to insert some of the satisfaction we all would have liked as well as a few explanations here and there for some of the events and behaviors we all found baffling.**

 **So if it's resolution you're looking for, this chapter ain't it.**

 **I doubt I'll be able to finish this story before Season 6, but as always happens at this time of year, I'll try!**

 **Again, there are probably errors since it was a little bit of a rush job this time.**

 **Thank you for reading and commenting and PMing! It means a lot, really. : )**

* * *

Chapter 11

She's been asleep maybe four hours when her phone vibrates on the nightstand. Deep as she is, she's aware enough. A sinkhole opens up inside her.

The second buzz jolts her awake to blinding white sunlight spraying like a firehose through the cracks in the blinds.

He's dead, she thinks. Or he's on his way to the tri-county lock-up, which is as good as dead.

She grabs the phone and rolls onto her back, holding it, surprisingly cold, against her chest and staring up at the ceiling. It buzzes again.

"No," she says. "Stop."

It does.

She makes herself look at it: _Missed call ASD_. The sinkhole expands.

The phone vibrates again, startling her, the screen lighting up with the picture she took more than a year ago now of Walt out front, arms crossed and the sheriff's star on the door behind his left shoulder, like one of those life-sized wood carvings of an Indian, or a bear, welcoming and intimidating all at once.

She touches the green button, but she doesn't put the phone to her ear, and she doesn't speak.

From far away she hears a tinny voice saying her name. It isn't him, but she wouldn't expect it to be, what with him being dead and all. The voice says her name again. It's Ferg she's pretty sure, and he might sound stressed, though tone is difficult to evaluate from this distance. When he says her name a third time, it's with a question mark at the end, and maybe some irritation.

Her hand is shaking, so she hits speaker and drops the phone next to her. She doesn't want to look at it.

"What?" she says.

"Vic?"

"Yes, Ferg, it's Vic. You called me."

"The Sheriff asked me to give you a call," he says. In under ten words she's put him on the defensive.

"When?" she says.

"When what?"

"When did he ask you to give me a call?"

"Uh . . .," he says, wavering as though he's unsure how much snark to add, "about two minutes ago."

Or as though he's under observation. She imagines him standing outside the cell, taking orders from the inmate.

"Hold on," he says.

"Whatever," she says, but it's too late; he doesn't hear her.

Before she has time to realize what's happening, Walt's on the phone.

"Vic," he says at a volume and with an attitude he generally reserves for calling out to her from across the office.

So he's not dead after all, but the sound of his voice doesn't have the usual warming, melting effect on her. It sounds cold and hollow and foreign. It sickens her.

"What's up?" she says.

"I need you down here now."

"Excuse me?" she says. She lets that hang there for a few seconds. "It's my day off. I have plans."

"I'm not asking."

A flair of anger scorches through her. She sits up and glares at the phone.

"Oh really?" she says. "Then in that case, fuck you."

There's a scratching sound, probably him massaging his stubble.

It's possible she just made a huge blunder career-wise, but this, right here, is her limit. More than anything, and she hates it all, she resents the hell out of him getting all bossy after neglecting to lead for months. Besides, she's been holding on by a thread for too long now; she'd just as soon have it break.

She pictures him standing behind his desk, shifting his weight, leaning down on the surface, supporting himself with a fist.

There's some rustling, and a muffled, "Give me a minute would you, Ferg."

After a delay and the sound of the door closing, he says, "Vic," much quieter, with a tenderness she isn't expecting. "Vic, I'm sorry."

"Fine," she says. "That's fine. But I need a day to process everything." Like the fact that you're a killer, and a hypocrite, and alive.

"I want to give you that day, Vic. I really do. But we have a situation."

"What situation?"

He exhales slowly and deliberately, like he's buying time. Far beyond the point where there could be any remaining air, he says, "It's Branch."

/

They're down at the river all day. For hours they're together physically, she and Ferg and Walt, wading and kneeling in the icy run-off, collecting evidence then waiting for the coroner. Somehow she manages to erect a temporary wall around her heart. To get through this she has to.

Early on she suggests they call in another agency. Walt seems to hear her, seems to be mulling it over, but nothing comes of it, and she's too drained to insist.

Around midday, away from Walt under blinding spring sun, Ferg says, "Branch wasn't the type of guy to do this." His eyes are almost pleading. "Was he?"

He'd become that guy, she thinks. He was screaming for help, trying to tell anyone who'd listen that he'd become that guy, and she heard him and did nothing about it, except maybe make it worse.

"I guess he was," she says, her eyes on Walt kneeling in the stream next to the body.

Ferg shakes his head and looks around him then leans in. "Someone could've done this to him."

She squints at him. "Who?" she says. "Who would want to kill Branch? Ridges is dead."

The rest of the day the three of them exchange words here and there, all civil and professional and cooperative, but mentally, emotionally, they're isolated from each other.

At no point does she think again about last night. Not until the coroner leaves, and Ferg goes back to the station to begin the mountains of paperwork, and Walt heads home to change his wet clothes before visiting Barlow, does it even cross her mind.

When dusk comes, though, so do the thoughts and feelings she's been keeping at bay.

She picks up a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, fully intending to take it home and drink it in a dangerously hot bath. Instead, she finds herself on the river road, thinking about Branch all alone out there in the cold, cold ever-moving water, and about Walt's thwarted attempt on Nighthorse's life.

The two nightmares intermingle in her mind: how Branch tried to tell her, in his own Branch way, that he felt so alone, and desperate, and unloved, and how she wasn't enough to make Walt not want to throw his life away.

She couldn't hear Branch because all she cared about was finding the right balance of doing and saying to get Walt to reconnect with her, and all that was for a man whose loyalty and commitment would forever lie elsewhere. She knew Branch was right, and she understood by that last time they were together, him in the cell and her on the outside treating him with disdain, that he needed help and understanding. He deserved that from her, yet she put all her time and energy into someone who would never have room in his cold heart for her.

It was all about playing it cool, passing it off like she was okay with him being the decider and telling her point-blank it was over, like she was one of those cool women who doesn't expect too much, lets the guy be a guy.

Fuck that shit.

Now Branch is lying on metal slab in a drawer in the county morgue, and the idea of Walt is tainted permanently by what he would have done. What did being the cool chick get her? She's not cool with any of it, and if she'd been more honest with everyone, Branch would still be the living, breathing arrogant dickhead that he was.

She's up in her head, once again not paying attention to what's right in front of her, when she sees too late the black form of what looks like a giant rat crossing the road. She slams on the brakes. _Thump-thump_.

Her heart hiccups.

"No!" she yells.

She jumps out and runs to the back of the truck, and there it is: a young possum, his whole life ahead of him, struck down by her selfishness and lack of foresight. She squats beside it. There's no blood. It could be sleeping peacefully, a world away from how Branch looked with half his beautiful face gone and a massive hole in the back of his head.

When the tears come this time, she has no control.

For a long time, she's doubled over in the middle of the dark road sobbing, not concerned about who might come down the highway next or about where she's headed. She just cries and cries and cries, mostly for the tragedy that was Branch Connally, but also for the tragedy that is Walt Longmire, and a little too for the tragedy that is Victoria Moretti.

More than anything now, she wants to get the hell out of this remote and lonely world, forget about all the backwoods drama, and start over somewhere else.

She pulls the snow shovel from the winter bin and scoops the possum up and into the bed of the truck. When she gets back in the cab, she reaches over and grabs one of the cans, puts it between her legs and pops the top. Before she starts driving again, she takes a long drink. She knows exactly what she's doing.

On the river bank she builds a fire, a skill she didn't have or need five years ago.

Time crawls, forcing her to experience every second. By the third beer, she's run out of tears.

Just as she's popping open the fifth, headlights illuminate the trees on the other side of the river. She doesn't turn to see who it is. She knows the sound of the engine.

The minutes drag again between the time the engine stops and his boots crunch across the riverbank gravel to her. She doesn't stand up or look at him.

"What're you doing?" he says, very matter-of-fact, like finding her on a riverbank at midnight drinking a beer and sitting next to a dead possum and four empties is totally normal.

"Nothing," she says.

"Got another one of those?" he says.

She nods her head sideways towards the last one, lying right next to the possum's belly.

He bends to pick it up, and only then notices her companion.

"What's this?" he says.

She's tired of his questions already.

"My friend," she says. "I murdered him."

Out of the corner of her eye she sees him scratch the back of his head and smooth down his hair. She wonders where the stupid hat is.

"Did you kill him?" she says.

"Who?" He's playing dumb. "Branch?"

"No." She looks directly at him for the first time. "What the fuck? Why would you say that? Did you?"

"No," he says, with a hint of growl in his voice. "What's this about?"

"You know what this is about," she says.

He rubs his forehead then the back of his neck, shifts his weight.

"I was there, Walt."

"Nothing happened."

"Because Henry stopped you," she says.

He stares down at her.

"You would have killed him."

She wants him to deny it so she can really lose her shit, but he doesn't.

"I would have . . . ," she starts, but stops before the words _loved you_ escape.

 _My love could have healed you_ , she thinks, but she knows it isn't true. All evidence indicates she's not ready for that kind of love, though she has to believe someday she will be. But what difference does it make now?

"Would have what?" he says as though he's truly interested, as though there's actually something she could say that would make him see it all differently.

"Nothing. Never mind."

"She was my wife, Vic."

"I understand," she says, but she doesn't. She never will.

She begins to get up, and it's harder than she anticipates. He reaches out, takes her arm gently. She pulls it away, loses her balance, almost falls. It only makes her angrier.

Surging forward and pushing him, she yells, "Don't touch me!"

It has no discernable effect on him, except maybe to make him look even more confused.

"I never should have," he says. "I made a big mistake, with you and with Branch. Ferg, too. I should have been a better leader."

"Oh, please," she says.

"I should have led by the book," he says. "If I'd just done that—"

"—Branch would still be here."

He shrugs.

"You're making his death about you," she says.

"Isn't that what you're doing?"

She wraps her arms tight around herself, aware suddenly that the warmth from the beer buzz is wearing off.

"Maybe it is," she says.

"Maybe that's just how we are."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Walt's impending return to work is awkward, even for those of them who didn't fuck him in weak moment, or four.

When Ruby delivers the news, Post-it in hand, Ferg just stares at her stunned, a miniscule crinkle in his brow.

"Guess the party's over," Eamonn says.

"What party?" Vic snaps.

He leans back in his chair with that smug grin she has a sudden urge to punch off his goofy face. She's glad she didn't sleep with him. When he apparently realizes she's not playing, he looks puzzled, but not puzzled enough to put any energy into figuring out where this is coming from.

Ruby's expression is a mixture of sympathy and disapproval though it's not clear who she pities and who she's judging. It pisses Vic off. The woman's never had four weak moments in her life.

"Well, that's a relief," Vic says in as even a tone as she can manage. "Now we can get back to normal."

All three of them look at her like she's speaking Klingon.

/

Walt's first day back, she comes in early, long before she expects him to get there, and she gets lucky: She fields a call about a couple of vintage Harleys stolen from a yard out in the far northern reaches of the county. It's a call Ferg should take, but there's no way she's letting that happen, not when this one promises at least two hours of driving, if not more, and a drawn out investigation if that's what the responding deputy feels is necessary, and she does. Then she'll call in a lunch break before she returns to the office. She figures that'll put it at around 1:00 or even 2:00 by the time she gets back, and if she's luckier, Walt's stamina will be compromised by all the ass-sitting he's been doing, and he'll check out early.

She knows she can't put it off forever, but she's willing to push it back as far as it will go.

Rarely does she think about what they did that day, she and the late Walt. In fact, she's gotten good at not thinking about him much at all, mostly because the pressure to step-up to the position, with the Feds hovering around every corner, has been immense. Every single tough day on the job since Walt was removed from service, she's reminded herself that this is her ticket out, and she's going to milk it for all it's worth—at the end of six weeks, if she can just hold the department together and keep everyone on her side, she'll have a gem for her resume.

Even in the weeks before Walt killed Barlow, they'd drifted further and further apart. He was still obsessed with Nighthorse, and she wanted nothing to do with it, or him really.

In that time, she started to notice things about him she hadn't noticed before: the puffiness in his face, and the scragginess of his hair and perpetual shadow, and the gut, which she was pretty sure he hadn't had, at least not to that degree, when she'd been naked with him, the idea of which now made her cringe.

For the first time ever, she realized he was middle-aged, and slowing down. The tough, lanky, intelligent cowboy she'd yearned for, and who it turned out had yearned for her, too, was gone. She'd never thought of him as being too old for her, but now she noticed the age in his hands, and his ears seemed oddly large, like her grandfather's. She'd always associated ears getting bigger by the year with old men. If she'd recognized that feature in Walt, she never would have wanted him. She was ashamed that this man in front of her, who she barely knew, had touched her, been inside her, without a condom. She'd never done that before even though she'd been on the pill since she was 18, except with Sean of course. But Walt had been different, or so she'd thought.

She'd never do it again, that was for sure. People change.

By the time he killed Barlow, it had all boiled down to yet another regret. She'd begun to regard it the way she might have regarded a random drunken romp. She knew it wasn't that at all, but none of what she felt for him then was accessible to her now.

A month earlier she'd deleted the three pictures she had of him on her phone because she found herself looking at them over and over, pining at first for who he'd been, but mostly wondering what on earth she could have been thinking, how on earth she could have believed she was in love.

She wasn't in love. She knows that now. Whatever it was she felt that deluded her so severely, she doesn't feel a speck of it anymore.

It was an unhealthy attachment rooted in decades old self-esteem problems and, God forbid but maybe, daddy issues. At least that's what she's come up with. The first one she can accept; the second has the potential to make her seek therapy.

When she returns from the Harley call, his office door is shut, and to her relief, it doesn't open again until close to five o'clock.

He notices her then, says hey, comes over to her, stands next to her desk. She looks up briefly.

"Welcome back," she says with as genuine a smile as she can pull off.

"Thanks," he says. He looks around him then back at her. "Everything seems pretty well in order."

"Pretty well?" She glances up again.

"Very well."

"Thanks," she says.

She thinks then he'll go about his business, but he just stands there as though he's waiting for something. Whatever it is, he won't get it from her. When he finally figures that out for himself, he says, "Good to be back."

She nods.

He goes back into his office but he doesn't shut the door. A few minutes later, she closes up shop and heads home.

/

They work together well enough when it's necessary, which isn't very often. Things have slowed down to a reasonable small-town pace, and Walt uses that as an excuse to can Eamonn.

On his way out, Eamonn suggests they meet for a drink. She's non-committal, but bats her eyelashes a bit just in case.

As he's getting into his Jeep, he says, "What's the story with you and Walt anyway?"

Her stomach clenches. "Me and Walt?"

"Yeah," he says as though he really wants an answer.

"No story."

"He possessive of all his deputies like that?"

"Oh, yeah," she says. "You should see how he acts when anyone pays too much attention to Ferg."

/

They're in the alley behind the hardware store, searching for Henry's truck, when Walt says, "We need to hire a deputy."

"I think Eamonn's still available," she says.

He glances back at her.

"What?" she says.

"Nothing."

She's walking behind him. He sounds bugged, but without a view of his face, she can't be sure.

"Bullshit nothing," she says. "What?"

"You and Eamonn?"

"What about me and Eamonn?"

"Are you sleeping with him?"

She stops walking. He keeps going.

"Wow," she says. "That's inappropriate."

He stops and turns to her, fast enough that it startles her into backing up a little.

"Are you?" he says.

"You mean regularly?"

He sighs, shakes his head in disgust.

After all this disconnection, after so long of being unaffected, this one small gesture connects. It knocks the wind out of her.

He starts walking again, and she follows but at more of a distance. They come across a green truck. Without getting any closer, she knows it's not Henry's, that they're just wasting their time here, pounding more nails into the coffin.

They're almost back to the Bronco when she says, "What about the doctor?"

At first she thinks he hasn't heard her, and she's about to repeat it, louder, when he says, "What about her?"

"What exactly is the nature of your relationship with her?"

He stops at the rear of the truck, pulls the keys from his pocket, and without even making eye contact, he says, "The nature of my relationship is none of your business."

Though it shouldn't, it hits her like a cold, hard slap in the face.

He gets into the truck. She waits a minute, tries to compose herself.

When she gets in, he's holding the mic on his thigh, and Ruby's voice is loud in the cab: A fire at the clinic. Dr. Monahan's car. The doctor called personally to report it.

The world feels like it's spinning, and shrinking. To stabilize herself, she holds onto the door handle.

They've already gone maybe a mile when she's able to talk again.

"You know what's funny?" she says.

"What?" he says, still irritated but with a touch of some other unrelated tension now, too.

"That's something you'd say to someone who actually gives a shit about you."

"What is?" he says, and it's a direct hit to the head of what she thinks might be the final nail.


End file.
